Poker Articles

WCOOP Event #2---How I Almost Broke Out

By Adam

I've been doing weird things on Sundays this summer....activities in that strange place known as "outside." For a while, it was unusual for me to go out on Sundays, but lately I've been staying out of the weekend tourneys.

This past Sunday, though, I played in the WCOOP (World Championships Of Online Poker) $500 NLHE Event on Pokerstars. The prizepool was a juicy looking $2.25M, and I was looking forward to taking a shot at some of that cash.

For those of you who are relatively new to the online poker scene or who are unfamiliar with the WCOOP, it is a "can't miss" series of events on Pokerstars that has taken place every September for the past five years. There are always a lot of exciting stories that emerge from the series. Last year, a rising star in the online world known as ActionJeff took the biggest payout in a chop of the Limit Holdem event. Colson10 had a cash of over $56k in the Pot Limit Omaha event.

The main event ($2,500+100 NLHE) had a final table that showed off some of online poker's most amazingly talents: aaaaaaaa (nearly $500k in cashes on Stars), PICKLED EGG (over $300k in winnings on Stars, all in 2005 and all in "main event" tournaments), and JERRRY (nearly $200k in cashes in Stars MTTs and a top heads up player) were among those present at the final table. The winner, Panella86, had made the final table the previous year.

I've been interested in the WCOOP for years, but this Sunday was my first event. I was hoping for a long day in front of the laptop... As I got ready to go, I saw Rob Mizrachi (who's bad) sitting across from me. Yay.

The very first hand of the tournament, I was dealt AQ in the cutoff. A player I've never seen before limped under the gun, and I raised to 80. Everyone else folded, and the limper called. The flop came A

, which is about as safe as it gets for AQ at this point. I had position and had flopped top pair. Even though AQ isn't TPTK here, I could play it more or less as such, as it's pretty unlikely that my opponent would be limp-calling with AK. My opponent bet out 80, and I thought about just calling and testing him out on the turn, but I decided to go ahead and throw out a raise. I didn't want to put a ton of chips in this pot, so I figured I'd try and see where I was at early on. I raised it up to 200, and he thought for a couple seconds and reraised the min to 320. Uh oh. I was considering a fold here, but with 2500 chips and having position, I felt that I needed to make this call and see if I could get a better feel for where he was at on the turn. I've seen so many people overplay a weak ace in the first level, although I could also be up against 5 5 and basically be dead...

The turn came the T

. I considered this a bad card, because A T was one of the hands I was thinking about him having on the flop. My opponent pretty quickly bet out 300. I was thinking hard about folding again....definitely didn't want to dump off a large chunk of chips on the first hand. But on the other hand, I needed to accumulate. Moreover, though, something just struck me as weird about this bet. When players limp-call like this and then mini-raise me on the flop, they're usually passive players that have hit a big hand. But all of a sudden this guy was making a pretty sizeable bet. I couldn't raise him, because I just didn't feel like I could get action from many weaker hands, but I started to regain confidence about my hand. I felt like my opponent wanted me to fold, and I just don't see this opponent wanting me to fold if he has A T or A 9 here. So I called again. I was down to 1800 chips already and I wasn't even finished with the first hand; so much for small pots!

The river came the 3

, a pretty harmless card, and he thought for a few seconds and bet 500. I really considered folding again....thought to myself, "what's in there is gone, save the rest." But the truth is, I was calling 500 to win 1930, and I just wasn't really believing that there was that good of a chance I was beat. I think against a good player, I've got a hard time making this call, but against an average player, I see two things that make me want to call here: 1) the potential to try and value bet very marginal hands and 2) the potential to keep bluffing when they shouldn't. I called, and he turned over Q

. Any of you reading this would have enjoyed seeing my face after I saw that. I was thrilled to have nearly 4,000 chips after the first hand...

Only two hands later, I picked up Q

in third position. UTG limped, and I raised to 80. Everyone else folded, and UTG called---sound familiar? The flop came J

, my opponent checked, and I bet 120. He check-raised to 480, and I had a decision. If I decided to continue in this hand, I was likely to play for all my chips. The thing is... People love AJ early in tourneys. People love to play AJ like AA on a flop like this, especially in the first level, and this just seemed like a great chance to chip up, even if it was possible I was behind. I reraised to 1,120, and he quickly moved all in. It was 1,220 more, and I called. Sure enough, he had AJ, and the 9 and K that followed didn't help him.

So after 3 hands, I was in great shape with over 6,000 chips! In fact, I was in the top 5 in the tournament. Rob Mizrachi was sitting out, and most of my table seemed pretty weak. NDGrinder59, a tough player (and P5er) that I'm familiar with had arrived, and I was prepared to be a little more careful with him.

I picked up a couple small pots and a couple medium pots, including one with 6 6 against NDGrinder and one decent-sized pot with A

on the button when I flopped top pair. I was running great and just feeling generally good about the play at the table. With the blinds at 15-30, I picked up J

in second position and raised to 90. A player two to my left reraised to 240, and the big blind called. Now I generally call in these situations, and, as BeL0WaB0Ve so eloquently put it, "play for GIN ONLY." I've been having some postflop discipline issues lately though, especially out of position, and I decided I didn't want to get in a touchy situation and end up losing a lot